


the devil in the deep blue sea

by Milieu



Series: 33 Day Guro Challenge [21]
Category: Changeling: The Lost, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: 33 Day Guro Challenge, Changelings, Drabble, Drowning, Gen, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:43:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6314002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milieu/pseuds/Milieu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The things we do to survive at others' expense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the devil in the deep blue sea

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 21 - Breath play
> 
> Featuring Jade from 'Diamonds in the Rough', though it isn't necessary reading for this one.

Sound is always far away down here.

There is something he remembers from long ago that contradicts that, something about particles and waves taught by a stern woman at the front of a room full of adolescents, but when the memory surfaces it sinks again just as quickly. This is not, and has never been, any ordinary sea either way.

He drifts, taking in the far away sounds, voices and things that used to be voices, waiting. Watching, always watching. Nobody crosses these waters without permission, to the isle they guard or away from it. Those that try are not to make it to the other side.

He does not know how long he has been beneath the waves, but he knows that he cannot leave them now. The water is his breath, his life. And yet that too is so easily taken from them, the ones like him that drift underneath.

You see, one time the interlopers did cross. There was a rickety boat under the cover of night, powered by desperation and something that left a sour taste in his mouth

 

 

(it was called hope).

 

 

The fastest among them caught up to the boat, but there he faltered. They pleaded with him, begged him to remember what he had once had, what they had all lost, and his hesitation was enough. The boat reached the shore and the deserters fled into the thorns, and come morning there were no bodies to show the master.

The rest of them watched as the fastest among them had his breath stolen away, choking on the water that had been his life until he was just another dead fish for the waves to carry away.

\---

Tonight, there is another boat.

There is only one fleeing in it this time, and though her desperation and her hope are just as great, she cannot slice through the water as quickly as those who came before. It is easy for him to catch up with her.

Like the ones who came before, she pleads. She tells him he was human, like her, that he could be again, and there is

 

 

a glimmer

 

 

and he sees the sun shining on a lake and familiar faces around him and he hears the laughter and it is closer than he can ever remember it.

But he knows how this story ends. Someone crosses a boundary and pays the price.

Tonight, it isn't going to be him.

The deserter and her words and her hope are pulled over the side of the boat before she can say any more, and he doesn't stop pulling her down until she is just another cold, pale body in the surf.


End file.
